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Robert Gant
Actor Robert Gant (born Robert John Gonzalez; July 13, 1968) is an American actor. He is sometimes credited as Robert J. Gant. He portrayed Ben Bruckner, an instructor in a Pittsburgh University teaching Gay studies and writer, on Queer as Folk (US TV series). Personal Life Gant was born in Tampa, Florida, of Spanish, Italian, Cuban, Irish, and English descent. He was raised Baptist. He began acting in television commercials and joined the Screen Actors Guild at the age of ten in his home state of Florida. At the age of 11, he performed a soft-shoe routine with Bob Hope as part of Hope's USO tour. He majored in English literature at the University of Pennsylvania and then studied law at Georgetown University Law Center. It was his career as a lawyer that brought him to Los Angeles when he accepted a position with the LA office of Chicago-based Baker & McKenzie. The international firm's Los Angeles office was closed soon after. Rather than continuing his career in law, he decided to focus on acting thereafter. Gant is involved in a number of philanthropic organizations with a great deal of focus going to the issue of aging in the gay community. He currently resides in Los Angeles. Television & Film Career Between 2001 and 2005, Gant appeared on television in Showtime's QUEER AS FOLK as Ben Bruckner, his best-known role to date. When Gant first took on his role in QAF, he identified himself as a straight man. In fact, QAF only had two actual gay actors portraying gay main characters (Randy Harrison as Justin, and Peter Paige as Emmett). During the shows second season, the actors were guests on LARRY KING LIVE, where King asked the straight actors if they had trouble identifying with their gay characters. When King approached Gant with this question, Gant very coyly avoided answering the question by saying that as an actor, he had played many different characters who had been in love with people he was not in love with himself - that it was all a part of acting. Gant even mentioned his small role on FRIENDS where his character was in love with Phoebe. Gant later came out as gay and was on the cover of THE ADVOCATE. Gant cited that QAF was a ground-breaking show and that he could not live his life sheltered or in the closet after playing the character of Ben. In 2005, he appeared in an episode of the television crime drama The Closer. In 2009, Gant appeared in Personal Affairs, a BBC Three-produced drama set in London's financial sector.2 Prior to Queer as Folk, he appeared in recurring roles in Popular and Caroline in the City. Other guest appearances on television programs include Melrose Place, Ellen, Friends and Nip/Tuck, among others. He plays the role of the Famous Director in the 2012 feature film Joshua Tree, 1951: A Portrait of James Dean. In 2011, Gant made a cameo appearance in season 1, episode 8 of TV Land's Happily Divorced. He also appeared in the independent films Special Delivery, The Contract, Fits and Starts and Marie and Bruce. In 2007, Gant, Chad Allen and Judith Light acted and produced Save Me. The movie about the ex-gay movement was distributed by Mythgarden, the production company formed by Gant, Allen, and Christopher Racster in 2004. In June 2004, Gant starred in the short film Billy's Dad Is a Fudge-Packer!, an homage to 1950s educational films. Activism Gant supports such organizations as Services & Advocacy for LGBT Elders (SAGE) and Gay & Lesbian Elder Housing (GLEH). He supported Hillary Rodham Clinton in her bid for the Democratic Party's Presidential nomination in 2008.